Through the Curtains, Beyond the Adobe Wall

There’s a silence that sometimes comes with twilight. The evening twilight. It’s different than the morning twilight, filled with excitement, energy, anticipation for the day. This one is calm, nurturing. The evening twilight bleeds pinks, purples, and royal blues, fading to dark. The first few stars begin to twinkle. The silence, still, tentative, settles in the suburbs.

It’s a special thing to spot the first star of the night. Or any star, if you think about it. Their light, ancient, millennia old, reaches your eyes. That’s a sun in a far away world, sending its light to the farthest reaches, and these photons in this sequence of expulsion from the star just happen to fall onto your eyes for just a brief moment. Then, they’re gone. That star might be long dead, but its light remains, and you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse. It’s a moment that’ll never happen again. The position of that star in the sky, in the universe, meeting your eyes at that moment, is surreal. Especially to think that the star might not even exist anymore.

These moments of brief serenity are fleeting. Is this what they call mindfulness? I’m present, observant, pensive. Everything slows down as I stop to see the world around me. But it’s not just seeing. It’s hearing, feeling, experiencing. Being.

A cool breeze wafts through the trees. Wind chimes delicately cast their varied tones, and the smell of mimosa blossoms drift in the open window. The curtain dances in the breeze, and the air, holding tightly to the moisture of last night’s thunderstorm, drifts in.

Coyotes yip in the desert beyond the neighborhood just a few blocks away. It’s a reminder that the wild lands are within arm’s reach, and that they, too, hold their own mysteries, danger, and complex life that I know virtually nothing about. But it’s there, just like those stars, holding onto their secrets only to reveal them to those whose curiosity and drive push them to those frontiers.

And what frontiers they are! Right in our own backyard! Deadly beauty of the cactus blossoms, the unseen lives of prairie dogs, thousands of centipedes scuttling across the desert sand. Creosote exudes a heavenly fragrance after a summer storm, rivers of water flood into the arroyos into sometimes torrential rivers of destructive, but life-giving nourishment. Lightning streaks with the colors of a palette and dances across the sky or strikes the expansive ground below, shakes the walls of the buildings as the energy rents the very air. The sudden volatility reminds us of our mortality.

But for now, the chaos in my backyard remains at bay with only glimpses of its existence coming to my attention. It’s dusk, after all. This is a transition period of peace where everything seems to exist in harmony. Behind these adobe walls, I feel safe, protected from that which may hurt while simultaneously fascinating me. Though the curtain sways ominously, whispers of wonder drifting in on the breeze, all I feel is peace for the first time in a long time.

It’s almost as if the world stopped in this between time as I say goodbye to day and welcome night and its comforting embrace. The last bit of light fades beneath the horizon and just as quickly as the still twilight appeared, it vanishes, bringing back the sound of the traffic, airplanes. The world resumes, the clocks regain their momentum around the circle, and I breathe a sigh before returning to my life.